Skating With Fang
by WingedQuill1
Summary: 2 years ago, the Flock saved the world, making them, and particularly Max, international heroes. Max held the world in the palm of her hand. Only one problem: She sacrificed her life for the world in the final battle. Or so the Flock thought...until she shows up at their school. Warning: T for language and mentions of rape in later chapters.
1. Memories

I pull my foot up behind me, then angle it straight up, locking my knee and pointing the toe to the ceiling, stretching. This is something I would have done with the Flock, but that's no longer an option. I am alone, and the simplest words remind me of that. Like now.

"You're incredibly flexible. You should ice skate." A male voice says from behind me.

"_Max, you should ice skate."_

"_You're hilarious." I snorted sarcastically, turning to face him and dropping the leg I had pulled above my head. He didn't let it fall, though. He grabbed my leg and wrapped it around his waist, pulling me close to him. I looked up to see him grinning down at me like an idiot, so pleased with himself. Even though he looked like a moron, I couldn't help but smile back, blushing. Knowing I was the only one who could make him smile like that. I leaned in to kiss him and the fireworks exploded, like they always did, but it wasn't a feeling you got used to. With Fang, every time was like my first time (except, you know, I didn't run away screaming anymore). I pressed against his body and deepened the kiss, hitching my other leg around his waist. He spun us around, but when we finally broke the kiss for breath and I relaxed my legs, he didn't let me down, just swung me into his arms, bridal-style, and marched to the door. I kicked at him, but I wasn't wearing shoes, and he just laughed it off. _

"_Where the hell are we going?" I demanded angrily._

"_Ice skating."_

"_Fuck you."_

"_You know you want to."_

"_You want me to."_

"_Well, who wouldn't?"_

_I rolled my eyes, but he just opened the door and carried me out into the (FREEZING COLD!) winter day. I shivered, and curled closer to him involuntarily._

"_Give me your jacket, it's really cold."_

"_Nope."_

"_Argh. My tombstone is going to read: Here lies a girl whose boyfriend was such a jackass he carried her out into a fucking blizzard in yoga pants and a tank top and let her freeze to death, even though he had a coat on."_

"_RIP."_

"_Right? It's Pathetic." _

"_Touché," he grinned, kissing me on the forehead._

"_Why can't you be more like Leonardo DiCaprio? He died so Rose could sit on a piece of wood."_

"_Maybe, but I have way better abs," he smirked._

_OK, he was right there, but I wasn't about to admit that. "They could have taken turns. He didn't have to die," I mused instead._

"_Yeah. It was a stupid movie. See, we agree on the important stuff."_

"_I really, really think me dying of hypothermia is more important than the probability of the plot of _Titanic _coming true. And it's a great movie!"_

"_I really, really think I don't care. And we're here." Gently, he set me down on a bench. I looked around, noticing for the first time the deserted pond stretched in front of us, covered with a thick layer of ice. Fang walked away, but returned a moment later, carrying two pairs of ice skates. He handed me one, and started putting his on. I pushed my feet into mine and laced them up, all the while wondering how the hell he had conjured them up. I swear to God, I'm dating Harry Potter._

_He stood up on his ice skates and smiled down at me. He reached out a hand, but I batted it away. Sexist pig! I can stand up on my –_

"_Oh, shit." I mumbled, looking up at him from where I was now sprawled on the ground. The jerk just laughed. _

"_Stand much?"_

"_Not on metal blades! How do you know how to do this anyway?"_

"_I took Nudge to that kid's birthday party at the rink in Virginia, remember?"_

"_Oh, yeah," I sighed, and pushed myself up, wavering for a second before he wrapped a strong arm around my waist._

"_Don't worry," he whispered, "You'll get the hang of it." He helped me walk to the edge of the pond. He stepped on before me, letting go of my waist and sliding backward, then edging into a flawless spin and, after turning a dizzyingly large number of times in about 2 seconds, sailing back to me like nothing had happened. My jaw disconnected from my body and slammed to the floor. He smirked, self-satisfied, then pressed two fingers under my chin and closed my mouth._

"_Catching snowflakes," he joked. He pulled me out onto the ice, and then let me go, pushing himself backward in front of me. Surprisingly, I didn't fall. I glided towards him gently, and he caught my wrists, pulling me to a standstill._

"_See?" Fang whispered, "You're a natural."_

_I hadn't anticipated liking ice skating. I hadn't anticipated being good at it. (Although, to be fair, I am Maximum Ride, badass-extraordinaire. Being good at things kinda comes with the territory, as long as there's no oven involved. Cough, cough.) But I really, really hadn't anticipated Fang looking so damn sexy while doing it. I mean, come on, it's ICE DANCING. It's not exactly the definition of macho. But somehow, his graceful, elegant strokes just made me love him even more. In fact, all of the above were true. To say I liked it would be an understatement. I loved the feeling of skating with Fang, so private, so intimate, yet so elegant and beautiful at the same time. Like we and our love were the only things that mattered in the world._

_We stayed on the ice for hours that day, and by the time the sun went down, we could have given any Olympian a run for their money. By the time we realized the Flock would be missing us and we had to go back, I was wearing his coat. I couldn't tell you when he'd put it around me, but that's Fang for you. He doesn't flaunt his kindness; in fact, just the opposite, he acts uninterested. But when he saw that I really was cold, he gave up his own jacket to wrap it around me, even though it left him freezing himself. It's the little things like this that made me love him. Miss him._

"You're hilarious," I snap, turning to face the boy, exactly as I had done two years ago. But he's not Fang, and so he doesn't catch my leg as I drop it. He doesn't pick me up. He doesn't carry me out to a secluded pond and teach me to ice skate. He sighs, and walks away. And it's all I can do not to break down in tears.


	2. Loss

**Hi people, **

**Thanks for the reviews!**

**Duskingdawn: Thank you so much! Fnicksplanation coming right up… (Note to self: No. Just no. No. More. Puns.)**

**So that oneshot was part of a larger story that I had in my head but hadn't fully written down - I liked it and felt like it could kind of stand on its own, so I posted it individually because the larger story is pretty long, but you asked, so, let's give it a shot! ****J**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the Flock, yada yada yada**

2 years ago, the Flock and I saved the world. You wouldn't think that what would get a girl back into badass-leader mode would be almost dying with her boyfriend in a giant tsunami. But then again, you probably wouldn't think that said girl had wings or gills, either, so you're just not all that good at this whole thinking thing.

For some reason, almost dying because I was unwilling to get out of a goddamn hammock clued me in to the fact that the way this was not really going the way it should. So after helping set the mutants back on their feet and supervising the rebuilding of Paradise colony, I gathered up the flock (yes, including the Dyldo, though that wasn't really my choice) and headed out for Operation: Save the World 2.0.

This time, for whatever reason, it worked. We battled through hundreds of Erasers/Flyboys/M-Geeks and bombed/hacked/just plain wrecked the shit out of dozens of Schools, in the process destroying all copies of the weirdo-creep disease that was supposed to kill all normal people. But since you're probably wondering why I'm not happily living in LaLaLand with Fang and the Flock right now, given that we won and all, let me enlighten you: I died.

Wait, before you freak out on me and start thinking this is from some ghost's perspective, I didn't really die. In the final battle, in Cancun, Mexico, I was fighting Omega, who had, because I have this irritating aversion to killing murderous creeps with my own hands, not actually died, and therefore not been cut out of the picture.

It was actually pretty epic, a lot like the scene at the end of Harry Potter where Harry yells a lot of insults at Voldemort, and Voldemort is just sitting there thinking, "What the hell?" and the entire population of Hogwarts and most of the Death Eaters are lining the edges with baited breath. The Flock's battle was over, every war was won, except that Omega still held one small vial in his hand that could destroy humanity. No biggie or anything.

1 year, 11 months ago:

_We circled around each other, Mr. Perfect-In-Every-Way-Except-My-Eyes-Can't-Track-Moving-Things and I, me with a knife in my right hand, him with the vial that, if unstoppered, would release pathogens that would destroy the entire human race in a matter of days. It was the only copy left of the disease the whack-head scientists had created, and it was in the hands of a robot-man without human morals or empathy. _Greeeeeat._ The only thing preventing him from opening it was the woman in my arms, the Director, Marian Janssen. Well, to be more specific, it was the knife I was holding to her throat._

_"__Max," she choked out in terror, "You're not a murderer."_

_"__I'd say the same to you, but then we'd both be lying. You have no idea what I'm capable of_,_ because you don't know the first thing about me. You don't understand what it is to love your family, so you'll never understand the lengths to which someone will go to protect them. If Omega-bot takes the cap off that bottle, make no mistake, I _will _kill you."_

_Cue pathetic, terrified gasp and warm water on my leg where hers was touching – Oh, my Jeb, that's not water! Holy shit, she peed! On me!_

_"__What are you, five?" I snarled, shoving her body apart from mine. "Actually, that would explain the whole 'thinking-you-control-the-human-race' thing."_

_She stared up at me in utter terror, and just when I thought we would be stuck in this stalemate until Galapagos Turtle-woman grew a shell, she whispered, "Okay."_

_"__OK, what?"_

_"__You release me, and Omega, you hand over the bottle."_

_I stared at her in utter shock. I had always known she didn't have what it took to be a martyr, but I don't think I had ever understood quite how pathetic she really was. In this moment, this woman gave up every dream she'd ever had for the planet because she individually, and no one else, was in danger. Of course, her "dream," the By-Half Plan, was utterly fucked up on way too many levels to count, but she had believed in it. That right there, not a good moment for my faith in humanity. Still, it was victory. In 10 words, this woman had ended the battle. I wrenched her to her feet from where she was lying in a pathetic, shaking heap on the ground, and walked towards the center of the circle Omega and I had been treading._

_Omega did the same, until we stood less than a foot apart. I could no longer hear breathing in the crowd behind us, as though every single person was holding in their breath at this one, final climax. My heart pounding and my grip on the Director shaking, I slowly relaxed my fingers from her arm, knife still pointed at her throat, and held out a hand for the bottle. Ever so slowly, Omega's fingers snaked out towards me until the bottle was in my grasp and he was holding only the clasp. _

_"__On 3," I whispered, "You let go, and I put down the knife."_

_"__One." Out of the corner of my eye, I sensed a sudden movement, but there were dozens of mutant warriors behind me, a little motion was to be expected._

_"__Two." A slight buzzing noise came from where I'd seen the motion. Omega's eye twitched toward the motion, and he blinked three times, in quick succession, but I ignored it. I could afford no immaterial distractions. For me, at this moment, only our tiny circle, Omega, the Director, and I could exist. _

_"__Thr-"_

_"__NOW!" A voice bellowed, and that was when my life went downhill._

_I subconsciously registered that the voice had not come from Marian Janssen and that, therefore, Marian Janssen was no longer in control of Omega. I dropped her, my hostage now a useless dead weight, as Omega pulled the cap off the bottle._

_Oh._

_Shit._

_I swear, there was a logical part of my brain analyzing possibilities, throwing together an awesome plan that involved, oh, I don't know, putting the cap back on? But I have this problem, which is that my body and my brain occasionally act independently of each other in situations where the girlio upstairs should really be calling the shots. So of course, instead of doing the smart thing, I made one of those snap decisions that I'm famous for and immediately plunged the fastest possible stopper onto the top of the bottle. Any ideas, people? Was it the cap? My hand? Omega's hand? The director's hand? Yeah, no. It was my mouth. As in, I wrapped my lips around the bottle and swallowed every drop of the liquid death._

_The disease wasn't ever meant to harm me. It was designed to kill normal people, to infect them contagiously left and right, but to skip over the mutant freaks. But no one really bargained on me _drinking_ an entire bottle full of the stuff. _

_The liquid burned my throat as it went down, and when it hit my stomach, my entire body seemed to erupt in fire. In the back of my mind, I heard screams and footsteps, but at the same time, my eyes rolled back in my head and my body began to shake. A moment later, I registered Fang's arms wrapping around me, his shaky voice chanting my name, begging me to wake up. More people screaming. Ambulance sirens. And then nothing._


	3. A New Kind of Family

**A/N: Thanks so much for the reviews, guys, they mean so much! Also…**

**OK, so I get that the italicized flashbacks are probably really annoying, so I'm just not going to format them differently, I figure you'll still understand them. Also, this is the last set-up chapter, and I know it's long and maybe a little boring, I'm sorry, but I promise, they are necessary. The actual plot will start in Chap 4, so get excited!**

**Oh, the song lyric excerpts are: **

**_Piano Man, _****by Billy Joel**

**_All of Me_****, by Elton John**

**_Come Wake Me Up_****, by Rascal Flatts**

* * *

**1 year, 10 months, 28 days ago:**

When my eyes finally fluttered open, I was lying in a white hospital bed, alone in a completely empty, sterile, white room.

Horrific blend of antiseptic, blood, and animal smells? Check.

Sounds of children's sobs of pain? Check.

Overwhelming desire to gouge my own eyes out with a spork? Check!

Well, gee whiz, I must be at my favorite place in the whole damn world: The School.

Having memorized my surroundings, I closed my eyes, not wanting to give away that I was awake as I tried to get my bearings and remember what exactly had happened to lead to me lying in this bed alone. Finally, the memory flowed back, crystal clear, right back to the moment I drank the liquid death and collapsed.

However, before I could come to any conclusions about my current location, the door opened. I watched through lowered lashes as a guy in a white lab coat (fancy meeting him here!) walked in, his back to me, toting an IV table.

I waited until he was just inches from my body before sitting up and shoving him backward. Luckily I seemed to have regained almost all of my strength, because his body slammed to the floor with an: "Oof!"

I rolled off my bed onto him, hands pinning his arms down, and hissed, "I should have known Hell would be a science lab."

"Y-y-you're still a-a-alive: you're not in H-H-Hell." The guy stuttered pathetically, his face smashed against the carpet so I could barely understand him.

"What?" I demanded, flipping him over onto his back so we could talk better, still straddling him and pinning his arms and legs.

"The scientists saved you here-they had a copy of the antidote."

"WHAT?! Where am I? Where's Fang? Where's the Flock? Answer me, you bastard, before I cut off your dick with a bobby pi-"

Suddenly, I felt a shocking pain in my neck and collapsed, thoughts going hazy.

When I awoke again, I was handcuffed and tied to a wall in a different room, three white-lab-coated dudes standing before me, looking extremely smug. Two were holding Tazers, clearly just there as back-up, so I turned my attention solely to the other man standing right before me. Roland ter Borcht.

Ter Borcht smirked at me, stepping so close that I could feel his hot breath on my face, and said, "Oh, Mizz Ride, you haf no idea how satisvying dis is."

"And you haf no idea how much your breath stinks," I spat furiously, imitating his accent. He looked pissed off, but kept his cool, stepping back.

"You haf no vay to save yourself, do not bozzer vis trying to resist," he hissed, "Your patetic 'family' ssinks you haf died."

He clicked a small remote in his hand and the wall opposite me lit up with a life size image of the whole Flock sobbing and holding on to each other as a casket was lowered into the ground before a small golden plaque. I could just make out the words if I squinted:

Maximum Ride

1999-2014

Savior, Lover, Leader, Mother

Whatever the cost, We shall fight on the beaches, In the Hills, And in the streets; We shall never surrender.

The quote was from Winston Churchill, my idol. It was about determination, about courage, about saving the world, and therefore, it was meant to be about my death. It was meant to imply that my death was "brave" and "self-sacrificing." How charmingly naïve.

I was pulled from my reverie by ter Borcht's irritating accent as he flipped the switch to turn off the image. "You vould haf died, but we had a…use for you. At da moment, dis is de only remaining School, but if ve can reestablish ourselves, ve can begin de By-Half Plan again," he said with an ominous excitement. "You have proven yourself more useful than I had imagined, and ve are going to use you as a veapon."

"Again, with this shit?" I snarled, "Let me repeat, I'm not a human AK-47! I'm not gonna be your little bomb pigeon!"

"I thought you might react like dis," he smirked, "Vhich is vhy ve shall erase your memory."

"_What?!"_

"Oh, don't vorry, Miss Ride, ve vill not take your recollections visout your permission. Oh no, you vill give avay your memories off your own free vill!"

I made no effort to hide my shock and honest amusement. "Have you met me?" I demanded incredulously, "'Cause I follow orders like you go on diets: Unsuccessfully."

"You think you are very cute," he hissed.

"Not particularly. I'm nothing special in the looks department, but I'm something else when it comes to kicking German ass." I said pointedly.

"You did not let me finish. You vill sign away the memories off your own free vill, because ve vill torture you until you agree." He snarled, furious but also clearly excited. He wasn't giving me the choice in order to be humane; he just wanted to get sick satisfaction from breaking me, forcing me to beg him to destroy my soul. But I would not do it.

"Hear this now: you can torture me until the day I die, but I will not break, and I will not stop, and I will not let you take my memory. I am _the _Maximum Ride, and buddy, I'm invincible. So…Let's…Play." I leaned back against the wall, steeling myself for whatever torture was to come.

* * *

And come it did. Torture I cannot speak of, because it was far too painful, torture that destroyed me not just physically, but mentally and emotionally as well.

In the end, we were both wrong. No one was a victor in that little game.

Ter Borcht lost because I still know who I am, while his body is a charred pile of ashes. He threw everything he had at me, but in the end I still escaped by setting the last School in the world on fire, ter Borcht's dream finally burning up with him.

I lost, too, though. I lost because it has been one year and ten months since I left that place, but I am not with my family. I didn't lose my memory, but I did break. After what he did to me, I cannot go back to the Flock.

I can't be the leader, the mother, the friend, or the lover I had once been after the torture I underwent at the School. I can't fulfill their expectations, can't play those roles for them, for _him_, and it is better that I not try. It is better for everyone that they believe me dead.

When I first got out, I was poor, sick and hopeless. I saved two innocent 5 year old mutant twins when I set the place on fire, because otherwise they would have burned alive in their cages, but for the first weeks after escaping, I was unsure that any of us would survive anyway. We couldn't travel far because one of my wings was so broken that flying was out of the question.

Instead we wandered the streets of Tucson, Arizona, the city closest to the School from which we had escaped. I wore a short, reddish-brown man's wig that I'd found in the dumpster and pretended to be male because I had learned quickly on these streets that girls are much less intimidating to street-people than boys, and I didn't want to draw attention to us by getting in a fight. We stole from garbage cans for almost a month until we were practically starving. We slept in an abandoned, run-down ex-warehouse in the backstreets of the city where no one came. Or so we thought.

* * *

**1 year, 9 months ago:**

I kept watch almost all night most nights, meaning that I got basically no sleep, but that was the least of my worries. One face haunted my dreams when I did go to sleep, a face I couldn't bear to look upon, so being awake was better anyway. One hot night, while the twins slept, I crept outside, hoping to relieve the stifling heat.

Today, though, the alley outside the warehouse wasn't empty; there was a drug deal going on. I hid behind a pile of junk, watching. There were 3 older guys who appeared to be buying drugs from one girl who looked younger than me, and the guys didn't seem happy. It wasn't uncommon, and it wasn't my business, so I decided to stay out of it, until things started to go…wrong.

"You see this joint, ho?" The biggest of the buyers snarled.

"Y-ye-ye-" The girl, who looked Hispanic, stammered back in a Mexican accent.

"No. You don't. 'Cause it's so fucking _tiny_ you can't even see it, and I didn't pay for no tiny joints. So that's why we're gonna punish you, so yer brother will know we don't take no tiny shit, geddit?"

"Next time, I want something bigger than this little piece of crap." He slammed her to the ground, and then stood over her with a disgusting, manic grin on his face. Then his hands moved to his pants and he started to undo his zipper, which is when I decided this had gone far enough. Fists clenching, I stepped out of the shadows.

"On the bright side, though, it's still bigger than your dick," I growled from behind the disgusting, now half-naked addict, and then I drove my thumbs into the pressure points on his fat, fleshy neck. The man collapsed, and the other two guys stumbled back in horror, reaching behind them for their guns, but I was too fast for them. I grabbed both men's collars and dragged them towards me until my nose was mere inches from theirs. Stifling the gag reflex brought on by the smell of alcohol on the men's breath, I snarled, in the most masculine voice I could manage, "Are you messin' with my girl?"

"I-we-we didn't-_your _girl?"

"Let me tell you pricks something," I continued, "You fuck with my girl, you fuck with me. And you do _not_ want to fuck with me. Yer pal over there learned _that_ the hard way. You boys think you can get that through your thick skulls?

They nodded shakily, but I was on a roll. "Here, let me help," I snarled, and pulled their collars together, cracking their skulls against each other painfully.

"Now run home and jerk off alone, boys, you won't be laying a finger on any more girls tonight." I shoved them away, and they took off running as fast as their puny old pervert legs could go.

Then I turned to the girl and bent down, reaching out a hand to help her up. She took it shakily, looking at me with a mixture of awe, gratefulness, and fear. I smiled at her, and said in my normal voice, "Don't worry. I don't want to hurt you. I'm a girl, actually, the name's Ma-Maggie. Um, Maggie Rex."

Her eyes widened even further, and she managed to get out, "Why did you save me?"

I shrugged. "You looked like you could use some help. Here, let's get you home-well, do you have a home? Is there someone you can call? Your brother, he said?"

"I-yeah," she mumbled, and I helped her walk shakily to a phone booth a block away. A few minutes later, a guy a few years older than me drove up in a grimy black Jeep that looked like it had passed its prime sometime in the 1800s. He jumped out and thanked me profusely. We talked a bit, and when it became clear I had no home, but they did, he invited me to come stay with them as a thank you for saving his little sister. I woke up the twins, Candy and Cap, and the five of us drove back to their small shack on the edge of town.

* * *

It turned out that Jose and Sophie, the boy and girl I had met, were members of a small community of illegals (Mexican immigrants in the country without papers) that lived in the shadows of the city, some working on farms or as nannies for far less than minimum wage, some (like Jose) selling drugs, almost all, unfortunately, addicts. They had no legal standing in the community, and if they went to anyone for help, they'd be imprisoned or kicked out of the country.

We stayed with Sophie, Jose, and Jose's best friend, Ramon, for about 6 months while I got to know the community and learned to speak Spanish, which was most of their first or only language, pretty fluently (Jeb had given me a few lessons, and I'm a fast learner).

Eventually, they came to see me as something of a leader, and I helped José, Sophie, and Ramon, to get over their drug addictions (okay, helped is the wrong word. I locked my friends in separate rooms for a month and waited out the withdrawal symptoms). Once they were sober, others followed suit, and I was able to organize them. We couldn't legally form a union because they weren't here legally, but I helped unite them so that they could talk to employers and get better paid, more stable jobs that didn't involve buying or selling drugs.

It sounds, when I tell it like that, like I've moved on, doesn't it? It sounds like I've found new friends and a new way to help save some small portion of the world. It sounds like I no longer need the Flock. But none of that could be farther from the truth.

The smallest things remind me of them, of how desperately I love them and need them, how much _less_ I am without them by my side. Unfortunately, even if I decided to go back, it would not be an option.

As I discovered quickly, the entire immigrant community hates the Flock with a passion, because apparently, although I had no memory of it, when, seven years ago, when we first escaped from the School with Jeb, the Flock got into a fight with this group, and in an attempt to escape, Fang accidentally killed their last leader, who was beloved by all. And of course, because that's not bad enough, the leader was Jose's uncle, the man who had raised him and Sophie practically from birth. Because whoever's up there (God? Mother Nature? Um…Wikka?) apparently has an extremely personal vendetta against me. Go figure.

Most days, I can brush it out of my mind, pretend that Margaret Rex, mother to Candy and Cap, leader of the illegal aliens of Tucson, Arizona, is the only person I've ever been.

Some days, though, my need for my first family hits me hard.

* * *

6 months ago:

All day long, I'd been going through the motions of leading the group, going to meetings, making speeches, talking to the needy, signing shit, but for whatever reason, my heart hadn't been in it that day. I didn't want to be here in Tucson, surrounded by people yet alone, because these people who would definitely hate me and probably kill me if they knew my real identity. I wanted to be with the Flock. At 8 PM, I called an early night, sending the others home. I stayed, though, in the "conference room" we'd all been sitting in, really an abandoned warehouse that we used for leadership meetings.

Slowly, wanting to relax, I pulled my iPod from my pocket and placed it on the empty table before me, then set it to shuffle.

_BAD IDEA._

"It's nine o'clock on a Saturday," the song began to play.

"The regular crowd shuffles in."

"There's an old man, sitting next to me, making love to his tonic and gin."

"He says, son can you play me a memory…"

Fang, Iggy and I all loved Billy Joel. It was the first music any of us had ever listened to because he was Jeb's all-time favorite artist.

A thousand memories rushed into my head, Jeb playing this song on his ancient record player, his pride and joy; Fang, Iggy and I waltzing around in a dance we'd choreographed at the age of 10; so many more.

I never forgot that dance. I could still perform it now, if I could bring myself to stand up from where I was slumped, head in hands, at the empty table, but instead I slammed my hand down on the next button, just wanting to forget for a moment, and the strains of a slower, sweeter song meandered from the iPod speakers.

"What would I do without your smart mouth?

"Drawing me in and you kickin' me out."

Finally, the tears that had been heating the edges of my eyes all day broke free and poured down my face like rain. This wasn't just any sweet love song, it was _our _song. The one Fang had hummed to me on the beach, the first time I didn't run away, and at Total's wedding, trying to show me what I meant to him because he knew that night he would be gone. The one whose lyrics he whispered in my ear late at night, when nightmares haunted me.

"'Cause all of me loves all of you,"

"I love your curves and all your edges,

"All your perfect imperfections…"

It was us, so clearly, so obviously, the way we weren't designed to love each other like Dylan had been, we weren't the perfect pair, we were perfect complements. We fought like demons because we loved each other so deeply, because only by acknowledging imperfection could we find perfection.

And with one sip from a poisoned cup, I had lost all of that.

I didn't want to listen to this shit. Furious now at my terrible luck, desperate for relief, I fumbled for the iPod yet again, finally tapping the button to skip the song.

"I can usually drink you right off of my mind, but I miss you tonight."

Finally, with a shuddering breath, I acknowledged defeat, dropping my head onto my arms on the table, deep sobs shaking my body as Rascal Flatts sang the story of my life.

"I can normally push you right out of my heart, but I'm too tired to fight."

As the song finally wound to a close with the narrator begging for his pain to just be a dream, I reached out a robotic hand for the remote to the television in the corner of the room. I turned it on as if in a trance and searched Cable until I found a celebrity gossip channel playing what I wanted - no, needed - to see. The Flock.

"-Favorite celebrities, the Flock, who are currently living in Arizona, attending Mahatma Gandhi High and Elementary Schools, appear to have had a fight," a too-peppy, too-blond newswoman said when I turned it on, clearly in the middle of a segment, and then the scene onscreen cut to a picture of my mom's old house.

When audio cut in, I heard a huge bellow of rage, and a black blur shot from a window into the woods.

Fang.

My whole body tightened at the sight of him, my stomach twisting and my heart beating faster. Then a smaller, pink and purple blur which I presumed to be Nudge shot out of an opposite window in the other direction. An instant later, Iggy flew out the window after Fang, slower, calling his name, clearly not knowing which direction to go, and Gazzy followed Nudge.

A moment later, Angel came running onto the yard, much closer to the camera. In a powerful, focused voice, she snarled, "Go. Away."

Suddenly, the image went black for a moment as the cameramuan followed her instructions which were, I'm sure, accompanied by telepathic "persuasion", and then the picture cut back to the announcer lady.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, I heard Sophie's voice calling my "name."

"Maggie? Maggie! Where are you? It's midnight, you haven't come back to our room!"

"MAGS!" Finally, she saw me, and ran in, eyes going confusedly from me, slumped on the chair, to the television screen, to finally the almost-dried tear tracks on my cheeks, and she ran forward to wrap her arms around me.

"OMG, Maggie!" She yelped.

Somehow, this broke every pathetic remnant of a barrier I had left, and I whispered the four words that would get me thrown out of this gang with a bullet through my head.

"It's Max. Maximum Ride."

Her jaw dropped open, and she stared at me for a moment. When she was finally able to speak, she mumbled, "Thank you."

Now it was my turn to stare. "Um, for saving the world? You're welcome, I guess, but let me remind you, you hate me…?"

"Not for saving the world…I mean, thanks for that, too, I guess, but I meant for killing him. My uncle. I never told anyone this, but although he was like a father to Jose, I…" she paused, seeming uncomfortable, then continued: "Jose's male. I'm female."

"I know…?"

"He used to, um, you know…"

"Oh, God!"

I had a guess at what she was getting at, but I wasn't sure until she whispered, "Yeah. It's why I was so, you know, helpless when you first met me-it was a throwback and I kind of had a panic attack. I mean, I was little, I didn't really know what was happening, but when Jose was out, he would bring his friends over, and make me take off my clothes and-" tears were falling down her face, too, now, so I wrapped her in my arms and held her as she held me, both of us shaking, taking comfort in each other.

Finally, I whispered, "I understand."

"No you don't." She snapped, pulling away, "You know it hurts, but you don't know what it's like! You can't understand unless-"

I leaned away from her then, extricating my arms, and pulled her chin up to face me. "I know. You can't understand unless it's happened to you." I said forcefully, "And I _do_ understand."

Neither of us asked for any more information, but from that day forth, we were best friends.

* * *

Most of the time, now, I'm Dictator Max, because though I love Jose, Ramon, Sophie, Candy, and Cap, I have a city to run, and a huge population of addicts and homeless people to help, and employ.

Personally, I think we've come really far and that we should just stop trying to change things and work with what we have, but unfortunately, Jose disagrees.

* * *

3 days ago:

Sophie, the only human being in the world who knew who I was, sat beside me, Ramon and José across from us at the conference table, discussing strategy.

"Education." José said for, I kid you not, the billionth freaking time. "You took over this community, Mar, and you took away our drugs, and our guns, and you made us fucking pansies." José, I would like to point out, is gay. Question mark. "And I hated it at the time, but I admit, we're probably all better people now and blah, blah, blah, but if you want to help these people, you have to teach them so they can get themselves real jobs and maybe even citizenship."

Schools and I, as you may remember, do not get along well, and I still don't really understand the point of formal 'book-learning,' but Jose had been so insistent about it for so long that I agreed just to make him shut up.

"Fine," I finally muttered dejectedly, "Here's the deal: The six of us can attend a real school for two weeks so that I can get a taste of this "education" of which you speak so highly, and if, at the end of that time, I decide that school has hidden merits that I've been missing (which will not happen, I promise!), we will talk about doing something about it here."

Ramon's jaw dropped. "Oh my God," he breathed, "You gave in? I can't believe it! SHE GAVE IN!" He yells to the room at large, even though there are only the 4 of us here.

"Easy there, Rambo, don't make me change my mind," I snapped, "I'm only doing this 'cause José was giving me a migraine, but if you're gonna give me one anyway…"

"I will never speak again," he whispered reverently, and I smacked him.

"Alright, where are we going?" I said, and José rapidly pulled up a list on the projector of the best high schools in the state. I scanned through it, though I had no idea what I was looking for, hoping that something would pop out. And lo and behold, something did.

"Mahatma Gandhi High," I said assuredly, and they stared at me.

"Uh, why?" Ramon asked with a snort.

"I dunno. Something about the name just draws me, I guess." I really had no idea, no special connection to Gandhi, nothing, but it felt…right.

"Something about 'Mahatma Gandhi' just draws you? Is that a person or a disease?" Sophie demanded derisively.

"He's a famous guy, dumbass," José told his little sister, rolling his eyes. But when Sophie asked what he did to become famous and José had no idea, it was my turn to roll my eyes.

"He sat in front of a tank in a movie," I supplied (hey, I didn't say I was an expert!).

"What movie?" Ramon pressed.

"How to Get Your Ass Blown Up. In 3D!" I said sarcastically. Sophie and Ramon laughed, and even José, ever the stoic one, cracked a grin before rolling his eyes and putting together fake résumés and IDs to get us accepted.

* * *

So, together, all these things led me to where I am now, standing outside Mahatma Gandhi High, disguised as a "preppy" because Sophie thought that would call less attention to us, ready to enter. Welcome to hell, Max.

**A/N: OK, I want to apologize again for the lesser amount of action in these last two chapters. I'm sorry that there had to be so much introduction; I promise it was necessary, but it'll get more exciting/actually start having a plot from here on out! I don't know if you guys caught why Max was attracted to Mahatma Gandhi High, but if so, then you might have an idea of who we'll be meeting next chapter… ;)****  
**


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